“Hello?” I listened for hearts beating. Or, as I used to think of it, dinner bells ringing. “Anyone home?”
The lack of heartbeats didn’t mean no one was there. Just that no one had been left alive.
A circle of stones created a simple fire pit, complete with a metal grate for grilling, that formed the heart of the camp. A grilled meat tang clotted my nose, but the rich scent wasn’t quite right for burgers or brats.
The daemon and Clay exchanged a weighted stare, then Clay jerked his chin at me toward the first tent.
Once again, I got the impression I was being allowed to participate in the search. It grated on my nerves, to be coddled by them, but I didn’t have that black magic oomph. Without Colby, I was the weakest link.
The second after I unzipped the flap on my designated tent, I knew who pulled the short straw. “Clear.”
“Found them,” Clay said grimly. “What’s left of them.”
After I joined him, I counted three rib cages, but the rest was too mangled and strewn for me to identify. The hikers hadn’t started to smell, yet, but the air was cooler up here, and the decomp would be slower.
Done waiting for an invitation to join the party, the daemon prowled out and began canvassing the area.
“We’ll need to call this in.” I entered the tent to examine the bodies. “The cave needs cleaning out too.”
The Black Hat Bureau’s purpose was protecting the supernatural community from discovery by humans, who outnumbered and often out-violenced us. We weren’t policing supernaturals for their sake. We did it for our sake. And if we made the world slightly less terrible in the process, then cool.
But the flip side of that was, if a few humans had to die for our cover to remain intact, then we had more than enough folks on the payroll who wouldn’t mind a hot dinner without any pesky legal repercussions. I ought to know. I had cashed in more than my fair share of meal vouchers over the years, though not for humans. Their gamey hearts weren’t worth the chew.
“Hear that?” The daemon lifted his head, tilting it to one side. “Someone there.”
“Where?” I craned my neck toward him. “Show me.”
The final victim rested under a fallen tree, its dirt-caked roots creating a blind for them to hide behind.
A woman, late forties, clutched her abdomen, grappling weakly with her insides to hold them in.
“Hey.” I knelt beside her in the soft pine needles. “Can you hear me?”
Fever had turned her eyes bright, and she had trouble focusing on me.
“Monster,” she whispered, voice ragged. “Leave…me.” She wet her cracked lips. “Go.”
No medical degree was required to tell me the woman was dead. She just hadn’t finished dying yet. Her trauma was too extensive, and she had been left untreated for too long. She would never make it down the mountain. Even if we got her medevacked, I saw this going one way. And that sucked. Really sucked.
The fever burning her up had warped her sense of time, a small mercy, but her clock was ticking down fast.
“Shh.” I took her hand, mine sweaty and unsure, but I let my conscience guide me. “You’re okay now.”
Shifting my weight, I withdrew my wand and pressed it gently into her side as I began a syphon spell.
The instant her pain hit me, my phantom wounds mirroring her real ones, I grunted from the unbearable burden she had endured since the attack. I jerked my hand back on reflex, desperate to sever our link, but I had underestimated her. She clung to me with more strength than I had credited her, equally desperate for respite.
A soft exhale parted her lips, a surcease of pain that left her weeping with relief, and I found my resolve.
“We’ll protect you.” I sat down when I started getting woozy from spending so much magic. “Just rest.”
“Thank you.” Fresh tears cut tracks through the dried blood on her cheeks. “You’re an angel of mercy.”
No.
I was a stone-cold killer who had developed too many cracks in my psyche to continue with the life.
This was an act of mercy, yes, but it was a calculated one. I could afford to be kind, given we had already decided this was our last stop for the night. Otherwise, I would have put her out of her misery with a cut of my athame across her pale throat. Maybe a quick death, the ultimate mercy, would have been kinder.